Use Case

MongoDB for Mobile

Mobile is now central to every user engagement strategy, whether you’re serving a distributed field workforce or end customers. MongoDB helps you effectively build apps in an increasingly mobile-first world.

Try Free

Contact sales

Illustration of application on phone with gear

The Evolving Mobile Landscape

From smarter devices to ubiquitous sensors embedded in everyday objects to high-performance WiFi and cellular networks, organizations embracing “mobile-first” development are opening up new opportunities. Think immersive, AI-driven lifestyle and retail experiences, mobile payments, e-commerce, customer portals, augmented reality and gaming, personalized healthcare and fitness tracking – the potential is endless.

Illustration of modern and powerful database

Modern Data Solutions Are Required

To deliver on the mobile-first promise, it's essential that you have a database that speeds up development and minimizes operational costs. The platform must also enable these critical application requirements such as a consistent experience however users access your services; instant responses when the user interacts with the app; always-on availability, even when the device is offline; and the ability to elastically scale to meet demand.

Building a Mobile App

What you need from your data platform

Illustration of developer operation window

Simplified development experience

Building a feature-rich mobile app involves a lot of work. Some of that work differentiates you from the competition, but much more of it is just plumbing to integrate with services and make the app reliable, always available, fast, and secure. Your developers' time is one of your most valuable resources and should be used wisely. You need a data platform that lets your developers focus on the code that makes a real difference, while the platform takes care of the rest.

Illustration of auto-scale backend database

Modern cloud backend

Hosting and managing your backend database and web/app servers is expensive, with high upfront costs. It's also inflexible, and you can't know how popular your app will become – under-provision and you can't scale to meet demand, over-provision and you're paying for unused infrastructure. Your backend database should be fully managed and scale to meet any level of demand – and you should pay only for what you consume.

Illustration of an auto-synchronizing database on top of a cell phone

On-device persistence

It’s possible to run a mobile application without storing data locally, but it will be unresponsive if every user interaction requires a round trip to fetch data from the backend. Even worse, it may stop working altogether when not connected to the network. Your local embedded database should be fast, have a small footprint, support a rich query language, be always-available, and automatically synchronize data changes with your backend.

MongoDB is the best data platform for building mobile applications

Why MongoDB?

Intuitive data model

MongoDB’s document data model & Realm’s object-oriented data model make it easy to work with native objects — no ORMs or DAOs needed.

Accessibility

Realm provides simple and secure SDK access from mobile apps directly to your data, whether in the backend or on-device.

Built-in sync

Atlas Device Sync automatically propagates changes in both directions between Realm, embedded in your mobile app, and Atlas in the cloud.

Versatility

Index and query data any way you need. Device Sync exposes the data generated on mobile to Atlas services, allowing you to search, analyze, transform, combine, and visualize your app or user data with ease.

Data where you need it

Atlas lets you precisely control where your data lives so you can ensure fast performance anywhere and meet compliance requirements; Realm stores the data on your users' trusted devices.

Always on

Built-in redundancy and self-healing ensure service continuity of the cloud backend; users can also continue to use the app when offline, using data stored on device with Realm.

Scale

Fully managed MongoDB databases in Atlas auto-scale to meet growing data volumes and user loads; serverless Device Sync scales automatically and transparently, and you only pay for what you consume.

Run anywhere

Run the same data platform everywhere – inside any frontend device with SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native and more, on a single cloud, or even across multiple public clouds.